Editorial: This is where the lies start

Updated 10:34 pm, Saturday, April 6, 2013

THE ISSUE:

Unlike most states, New York allows candidates to run on multiple party lines.

THE STAKES:

And we wonder why we get public officials who stand only for themselves.

Even if the only thing Democratic state Sen. Malcolm Smith is guilty of is trying to run for New York City mayor as a Republican, it's enough. Enough, that is, to hammer home the need to reform New York's election laws when it comes to political cross-endorsements.

What no doubt seems to some voters like a bunch of inside-baseball politics is actually one of the corrupting forces that thrive right under our noses. And Mr. Smith's case is just one example of the forms it takes.

This is about the blatant opportunism we see, year after year, when politicians run on the line of a party they're not enrolled in, whether it's one of the two major parties or one of several minor parties, some of them unique to New York state.

Mr. Smith wanted to run on the Republican line for mayor, but because he's a Democrat he needed permission from the GOP. Prosecutors allege Mr. Smith tried to bribe party officials to get that support.

Even without alleged bribery, this cross-endorsement practice, which only a few states allow, should bother voters, both on principle and on actual practice.

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The principle is simply this: Voters should know what politicians stand for — that a Democrat stands for Democratic principles, a Republican for Republican ideals, and so on, whether the person is on the Conservative or Working Families or some other party line. And if someone wants to start a Conservative Democrat or Progressive Republican party, they're welcome to.

But when politicians hop from one party's bed to another simply for the sake of a ballot line — and in the end that's pretty much the only reason they do — we're left to wonder if they stand for anything besides themselves and their own political success. And the same goes for the parties.

In the real world, this plays out in troubling ways. Party bosses parlay cross-endorsements into taxpayer-funded jobs and other favors. Elected officials sell their office in exchange for a coveted endorsement. One party hijacks another's line, sometimes using fraud and forgery.

Not that minor parties don't carry some honest value. They can use endorsements to get a major party candidates to take position that might be outside the political center. Having major candidates on minor lines allows people disenchanted with the major parties to lodge a protest without throwing their vote away.

But these benefits are outweighed by the system's corrupting influence. Few genuine third-party candidates are produced. In fact, the system discourages smaller parties from fielding credible alternatives. That's partly because parties maintain their automatic ballot position in succeeding elections based on vote totals, so it's to a party's advantage to grant its endorsement to a known name.

At a fundamental level of the political process — the choosing of candidates — fusion ballots foster a wink-and-a-nod climate in which candidates too often start their campaigns with a lie: who they really are. And we all go along with it.